The Belgian athlete is recovering in intensive care after sustaining a stab wound during a final long run preparing for IRONMAN Lanzarote.

by Volker Boch

The IRONMAN European season heads into a exciting weekend of racing, but our thoughts are with Belgian pro athlete Sofie Goos and her family.

Nine days after her 36th birthday, the two-time IRONMAN champion Sofie Goos was stabbed in the back during a training run in her home town of Antwerp, Belgium. A 26-year male, with undisclosed mental health issues attacked Goos while she was completing a final long run in preparation for this weekend’s IRONMAN Lanzarote.

Goos was one of the race favorites heading into the marquee event on the Canary Islands, and has a pair of IRONMAN wins on her resume (2009 IRONMAN Florida and 2012 IRONMAN Brazil), as well as a number of podium finishes. Goos had a solid start into 2016 at IRONMAN 70.3 Mallorca two weeks out of the tough race at Lanzarote. Now, all professional athletes racing in Lanzarote wish Goos all the best for a quick recovery from the shocking attack.

The five-time IRONMAN 70.3 winner headed out into the Park Spoor Noord in Antwerp for a training run last Sunday. During this workout, an unknown man attacked Goos about only one kilometer away from her home. Goos sustained a stab wound in the lower back which caused a serious injury to her right kidney and resulted in a large loss of blood. "I became a victim of senseless violence today," Goos posted on her Facebook page on Sunday night, "without a cause, reason or motive."

"The attack was totally random," Goos’ husband Jef de Batist told IRONMAN this week. "Sofie was doing a 16 kilometer run. I was with her on the bike, and she had just sent me home to do the last km alone when the guy attacked her."

"She didn't really know what had happened," continued de Batist, indicating that Goos pursued her attacker briefly before collapsing in the street. "Adrenaline, I think."

Goos admitted to the intensive care unit of the Stuivenberg Hospital in Antwerp after the attack. While the doctors tried to stop the massive bleeding in the hospital, the police arrested a 26-year old man a few streets from the scene in Antwerp. "He was still holding the knife," says de Batist. According to media reports the man was charged with attempted murder on Monday.

On the day after the attack Goos sent out a short Facebook post from the hospital to say thank people for all the "heartwarming comments" she had received from all over the world. "Moderately positive news," she said, "I am currently stable and the latest survey showed that the bleeding has stopped on the kidney. Medically, we wait and see what happens now, but to avoid any risk I will remain in intensive care." On Monday and Tuesday, the doctors noticed a few little steps forward, but the 36-year old was supposed to stay in the intensive care unit for the next days.

While athletes around the world learned about the shocking attack that has happened to the popular IRONMAN champion from Belgium, thousands of positive and warm messages were sent to Goos and her husband de Batist.

"We want to point out that we don't want any religious, political or racist opinion about the attack on Sofie," said de Batist, "This was one lunatic with a knife, and has nothing to do with religion, refugees or anything political. This is meaningless violence."

De Batist and Goos have one more important thing to tell: "We want to send out the message of love instead of violence."